The invention relates to a method and a device for coating tubular food casings, particularly skins, with flavoring substances in particle form, particularly spices, in which the tubular casing is wetted on the inside with an adhesive and the desired flavoring substances are applied to the formed adhesive layer.
Tubular sausage casings, which are coated on the inside with spice particles, have been suggested in DE 195 00 470. Here, one starts with a shined (gathered) sausage casing, which upon being pulled off into a cylindrical form is first wetted on the inside with a liquid adhesive. Subsequently, the sausage casing glides along an interior coating ring, whereby the adhesive should be more evenly distributed and wiped off to the desired thickness. During the further progression, via a central supply tube, pressurized air and spices are blown radially against the interior surface of the sausage casing, where it is held by the applied adhesive layer. Finally, the sausage casing must be dried.
In order to improve the adhesion of the spices, a rotating centrifugal disk can be provided at the end of the supply tube, which throws the spice by additional centrifugal force against the inside of the sausage casing.
In practice, this system has not proven successful, however, because no uniform and sufficiently thick coating with flavoring substances was ensured in the long run.
Instead, it is still common to produce tubular skins, to be coated with spices, first in the form of a flat foil and to coat it. Only thereafter is the coated flat foil then made tubular by matching shaping shoulders, forming it into a cylindrical form, and then closing it along its adjacent or overlapping longitudinal edges by sewing or adhesion.
This process is expensive with regard to time and energy, because the adhesive must be applied in a moist, liquid state upon the foil, with the consequence that after the application of the flavoring substances the foil must be subjected to an intensive drying process. Only after the drying can the flat foil coated with adhesive and spices then be brought into a tubular form and sealed by sewing, adhesion, or welding, and confectioned.
On the contrary, these processing steps would be impossible in a moist condition of the foil, both for hygienic as well as technical reasons.